Today in contact sports, and more specifically football, hockey, lacrosse and other activities in which body-on-body contact is likely, there is great concern and need to reduce or prevent head and neck injuries. Athletes participating in contact sports and especially football players are exposed to countless impacts resulting in Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). This occurs across all age groups and at all levels of play, from pre-teen amateur up through college and professional. It has been estimated that there are upwards of 3,000,000 concussions every year due to TBI. Other studies have estimated the number of concussions sustained in sports each year is between 1,600,000 and 3,800,000.
One currently existing technology used in football helmets is a Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) system that measures the helmet accelerations of players while they are on the field. This HIT system is limited in that it is incapable of measuring acceleration of a player's head, which is different than the acceleration of a player's helmet. Research has shown that the HIT system overestimates Hybrid III peak linear accelerations by 0.9% and underestimates rotational acceleration by 6.1%.
Present day football helmets have made considerable advancement with the adoption of safer equipment. These devices have been improved through the study of linear and rotational acceleration forces and how they are imparted through the helmet to the head and neck resulting from direct impact. The helmet, specifically skull, occipital, and mandible shell coverage, together with an interior padding systems, face guards, and both low and high point harnessing have been advanced to reduce the risk of head (concussion) and neck injuries. This equipment improvement, combined with proper instruction and technique, has reduced the incidence of such injury.
The majority of these injuries can be directly correlated to high speed linear and rotational impact forces. In spite of the new advancements, however, head, neck and other soft tissue/skeletal trauma resulting from helmet-helmet, helmet-shoulder, and helmet-leg contact is still prevalent. The unpredictability of 22 players in a full speed, full contact contest, introduces countless angles and variables of body part interaction that are difficult to account for even with today's current helmet/equipment technology. It is for these reasons that head, neck, and other injuries continue to plague these contact sports.
Attempts to alleviate these injuries have been proposed where apparatuses are created connecting helmet and shoulder pads and attaching braces that would restrict helmet movement. Unfortunately, these type of helmet restrictors and interconnectors with shoulder pads also severely interfere with play execution as a result of the restriction of head movement. Other types of equipment devices comprising cushion-like collars surrounding the base of the helmet or even the neck have also proven to be uncomfortable and interfering for players. It would seem that all these conventional approaches to equipment modification suffer because of their starting point: restricting player agility, mobility, movement from the very beginning of play execution.
Present day helmet/equipment technology views the helmet as an integrated protective apparatus; comprised of the plastic outer shell, interior padding/shock absorbing system, chin restraint, and face guard. All of these components integrate into one protective apparatus designed to absorb linear and angular collision forces resulting from direct, full speed body collision. The design intent is to reduce trauma imparted to the head and neck.
Additionally, several devices and methodologies have been suggested to reduce impact beyond strength of materials and cushioning. Berry, U.S. Pat. No. 8,191,180, describes the use of a restrictor system which is designed to reduce hyperextension of the neck and head. The helmet and shoulder pads of a typical football uniform are equipped with a series of magnets of similar polarity, creating a cooperative force which resists the relative movement of the helmet and shoulder pads toward each other. The placement of the magnets, on the back of the helmet and pad openings, restricts the backward movement of the helmet and head toward the shoulder pads. This permits normal side to side movement while reducing hyperextension of the neck in the rearward position. These and other systems are typically directed toward the reduction of impact shock within a device, such as a shoe, when striking the ground. The devices are designed to reduce the impact force of the load within the device, acting more as a cushion than a device for reducing the impact force itself.
Another helmet system disclosed in O'Gara, United States Patent Publication No. 2014/0215693 employs magnets in different helmets that repel one another to reduce velocity and deflect the helmets during helmet collisions. The magnets employed had a length of seven inches and extend at most 22.2% around a central axis of the helmet. The surfaces of the helmets did not include any protrusions that extend beyond the face guards, and the magnets were not encased or otherwise contained on the helmet and subject to removal or falling from the helmet when damaged. There remains a need, therefore, for a system or device which actually serves to reduce the impact force, rather than merely absorb the energy without imparting it to the body part contained in the equipment, and for such a system to function properly to reduce concussions during play.
Repeat use of reference characters in the present specification and drawings is intended to represent the same or analogous features or elements of the invention.